


Horseshoes and Hand Grenades

by kisahawklin



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Guns, Tasers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-13
Updated: 2013-02-13
Packaged: 2017-12-03 05:49:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/694856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kisahawklin/pseuds/kisahawklin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy's shot five different types of guns. The taser is by far her favorite.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Horseshoes and Hand Grenades

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Caitriona_3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caitriona_3/gifts).



~~~

When she tases the guy, it's not just because he's freaking her out. It's because he's huge, and upset, and there is no way she's going to let someone that size keep making threatening gestures toward her and Jane and Dr. Selvig. She puts up with a lot of shit for this job (which is way better than her last two jobs, but still) but dealing with raving lunatics that are running around drunk in the middle of the desert is not on the list of acceptable shit-slinging duties.

She loves her taser – perhaps a bit more than is reasonable, but it's fucking _cool_. She'd seen it in action before she got one – her last job was in a hospital and the policemen who carried tasers had to be tased themselves before they could be authorized to have one. They had to do it in the ER just in case there were any complications. That was one of the reasons she got a taser in the first place. 

The other reason was the meth-head that tried to run away from the cops in that same hospital – leaping over her desk in the process and nearly giving her a heart attack. He was as hopped up as anyone she'd ever seen and still he dropped like a stone when the electricity'd hit him. She'd gone out that day to buy a taser and she's never left home without it since.

~~~

Her first gun was a Super Soaker, which she received on her fifth birthday. The gun had been practically as big as she was, and the first thing she did was to fill it in the bathtub and proceed to miss every one of her brothers and sisters spectacularly – while completely soaking the entire living room carpet. 

It'd taken her a year and a half before she could actually hit any of her siblings, but once she figured it out, she never missed – and she got pretty good at subterfuge, too, so it took another several months before any of them figured out it was her pinpoint accuracy that ruined their makeup or hair or, one memorable time, interrupted a make-out session in the basement by getting Fluffy square in the butt. Kevin still had the scars from that one.

~~~

She moved up to Shaun's bb gun when she was ten. He'd gotten it for his birthday a few years before, gotten bored with it, and stuffed it in the back of the toy closet. She dug it out and made herself little targets in the back yard, hiding them in the overhanging branches of the trees. She only practiced when everyone else was watching TV or out of the house – Shaun was bound to get interested in his bb gun again if someone else was playing with it.

She got caught by her dad first, but he just showed her how to hold it better to make her aim more true. She hit a lot more of the targets after that. She got caught by her mom second, and that was the end of the bb gun – not even Shaun's whining that it was his toy stopped her from packing it up and bringing it to Goodwill. She packed up a bunch of other toys, too, including all of the water guns in the house and anything of hers that wasn't a Barbie. She shaved off all her Barbies' hair in retribution, dressing them all in fatigues she sewed herself and enacting historical battles – tearing off bits and pieces of the dolls when they were maimed by cannonballs or muskets. The Barbies went away soon after that, and Darcy had been left to her books.

~~~

She bought the laser tag set with her own money when she was fourteen. Kevin was off to college by then and Shaun was too cool to play with his kid sister anymore, but Meghan played with her – and brought along her friend Ann for the ride. Darcy's best friend Casey would play too, though she's pretty sure he let her win because he had a crush on her. She didn't care, really; she liked rallying the girls and taking him down, and he seemed to like it too. She shouldn't have been so surprised when he and Meghan ended up dating a few years later. It was weird but at least she trusted him with her little sister – more than could be said for most of the guys she brought home over the years.

Years later, one spring break when they were all hanging around the house, she found the laser tag set in the back of the toy closet and they replaced the batteries and played a game. She wasn't surprised when Meghan strung her along just long enough for Casey to tag her out, her chest piece blaring way louder than she remembered. She couldn't fire any more after that point, but she could block the laser, so she acted as a human shield for her sister until they backed Casey into a corner and took him out. He took it gracefully, she had to admit, and when he asked Meghan to marry him later that afternoon, she couldn't have been more thrilled. Until he asked her to stand up as his best woman – which she only agreed to because he promised she could wear a tux.

~~~

Paintball as a stag night might have been one of her best ideas ever. She hadn't planned on bride's team vs. groom's team, though, so for the first time since she was seven and squirting water guns at her brothers and sisters, she was on the opposite side from family. It was easy enough to team up with Casey to take out all of the bridesmaids and the lone bridesman (unlike Darcy, Meghan's friend Steve hadn't insisted on wearing a bridesmaid's gown), but when Casey's college buddy got a bead on Meghan, she 'accidentally' tripped over her own feet and into him, making his shot go wide. She just grinned and shrugged a flirtatious shoulder at him. He'd smiled back at her, and Meghan's paintball to his helmet was a perfectly placed surprise. She'd clearly been practicing.

She tripped twice more, once to give their position away and once to throw the last groomsman into the open; Meghan painted him with three to the chest. Darcy took the next shots gladly, happy to be out of the shooting match for possibly the only time in her life. To this day, she doesn't know who won. The match was called only minutes after she went down, and no one was talking about who was still standing. She likes to believe it was both of them.

~~~

As Darcy reloads her taser, keeping it pointed at the large, unconscious man in the back of the RV, she thinks this is probably the most fun she's had in this job. Why can't she shoot someone every night?

~~~


End file.
